How to Make Toothpaste and Other Toothpaste Facts and Choices

Is it worth learning how to make toothpaste? What's good to use if you want to be eco-aware? And which toothpastes are the best for our health?

This page tries to answer some of these questions.

First: How to make toothpaste

It's quite easy to make a simple toothpaste for everyday use. Mix salt and baking soda and add a few drops of glycerine.

Here's a toothpaste recipe for baking soda toothpaste:

4 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

a few drops of flavouring (peppermint extract)

Mix well and keep the mixture in an air-tight container

This is probably as safe and effective as any homemade dentifrice can be. There is no evidence that either of the main ingredients causes any harm to tooth enamel. One dentist promoted the use of baking soda for cleaning teeth for years. He always asked his professional colleagues if they had ever encountered a problem with it - and they never had. This would tend to indicate it is safe.

Baking soda toothpaste is also on sale almost everywhere, though the quantities of baking soda will be generally less than in this homemade version.

How to make toothpaste and other toothpaste facts:

What are the properties of baking soda as a dentifrice ingredient?

It also helps to create foam and it is mildly abrasive. It may help reduce the numbers of acid loving bacteria in the mouth but this effect lasts only as for a short time. It feels quite good in the mouth and it tastes OK. Your teeth should feel clean and smooth after its use.

Make sure you use baking soda, not baking powder (which contains baking soda but also includes cream of tartar). Just plain baking soda is what you want - otherwise known as sodium bicarbonate.

The glycerine (glygerin) is optional. It helps turn your dentifrice from a powder to a paste. Personally, I think the mixture is easier to handle in powder form, as glycerine is quite tacky and thick.

Even if you only use this toothpaste as a standby you may save some trips to the shops. If you use it more long-term you will be saving yet another source of landfill: most toothpaste tubes land up in our rubbish bins. They are not very easy to recycle, though I've heard that Hounslow in London is now doing this, and Tom's of Maine also take back empty tubes.

This toothpaste is also very cheap to make.

How to make toothpaste and other toothpaste facts:

Here are a few other ways to keep your teeth clean without buying conventional toothpastes.

Herbal toothpastes and toothbrushes

Humans have been using some kind of tooth brushing regime for a very long time now. If you go back to pre-historic times there's little doubt that some twigs and plants were used as toothbrushes.

Even today some people in Africa, India, and the Middle East clean th...

Simple soap is made by mixing an alkali such as potassium or sodium hydroxide (lye) with oils or fats. The resulting reaction - called saponification - produces a soapy substance which can then be refined to produce bars of soap.